Part of the deal that ended the budget impasse in July called for creation of a new pension plan for many of those covered by state-funded pension plans.

But it’s going to be a while before that new pension plan is up and running. The head of the largest state-funded system, the Teachers’ Retirement System — the pension system for teachers outside of the city of Chicago — said it won’t be in place before the end of the state’s current fiscal year June 30.

Illinois has the second-highest rate nationally of college freshmen choosing to leave the state to pursue higher education — a mark it hit even before the state’s two-year budget impasse — and preliminary figures this fall suggest the numbers continue to look grim.

Between 2000 and 2014, when the out-migration hit an all-time high, the number of freshmen leaving Illinois to attend college shot up by about 64 percent, according to a study earlier this year by the Illinois Board of Higher Education. Only New Jersey, which also has had state budget woes, exceeded Illinois in loss of students to out-of-state schools.

“We continue to move in the right direction. The more flights we have, the more landing fees, and concessions and other things … continue to move the airport operating (to) a break-even level.”

That was St. Clair County Board Chairman Mark Kern a year ago, when the 2015 audit came out and revealed the costs of MidAmerica St. Louis Airport to county taxpayers. The audit reported $6.5 million was transferred from the county coffers to the airport, which was down from $7.6 million in 2014.

A proposed redevelopment of Schaumburg’s former Motorola Solutions campus at Algonquin and Meacham roads is generally being regarded as a positive opportunity to fill a 225-acre vacancy along the village’s northern border.

But one of the major questions it’s raised for the area’s school districts is whether they’d feel a negative impact from an increase to their student populations on what has long been exclusively commercial property.